Corporate Sector > What are Amazon doing now? [Public]
What Amazon Needs To Change
Bill Hiatt:
Amazon must make quite a bit of money from indie authors collectively. If it wants to keep us as a thriving community, it needs to make a couple of changes.
First, ranks need to update in a timely fashion. I know Amazon for some time has wanted to kill spikes that result from large, non-Amazon promotions, but the current system, in which ranks may not change for up to five days, makes it far too difficult for authors to gain momentum--even from AMS sales.
Second, Amazon needs to do some tweaking to make AMS ads work more profitably. I think a lot of people would invest in AMS ads if they generally produced even a mildly positive ROI--which isn't usually the case. There is some evidence that people with huge budgets can make a profit, but most of us can't afford that.
In other words, what we end up with is Amazon trying to discourage the use of external promotional opportunities and then not really providing a great alternative. Over time, this will erode the number of indie authors (including those who buy AMS ads). A lot of people still publishing have sworn off AMS ads already because they've lost money on them.
How might AMS ads be tweaking in a way that doesn't cost Amazon money? I'm no expert, but maybe people who spend a certain amount on ads should be given back the organic visibility that used to exist but no longer does. The period of greater visibility for new releases has diminished considerably, and valuable tools like Also Boughts have been mostly removed. Really, those things should be available for all authors. That would maximize the royalties (and hence Amazon's cut). Amazon also needs to consider authors just starting out (who typically don't have much of a budget to work with). But if Amazon isn't going to that, then at least, such items should be available as a perk for AMS ad buyers. If Amazon really wants a viable pay-to-play ecosystem, then paying actually needs to be effective.
Another possibility would be better automated targeting. I see ads in all kinds of strange places. I suppose some authors might have mistargeted their ads, but I think very few people would consciously set up ads to display in areas unrelated to their books. When I search for my own books, some of the ribbon ads at the top are for completely different genres--and those aren't even AMS ads. It feels as if the system is not functioning correctly.
The way the system is structured at the moment, AMS is less profitable than it could be for Amazon and is likely to become less so as writers give up on it and on publishing. At the same time, authors giving up completely also costs Amazon money. So what we have right now looks like a lose-lose system for Amazon. A more enlightened approach could lead to greater profits for both authors and Amazon.
TimothyEllis:
Put the also-bought slider back on every product page in all stores, in a prominent place.
It's the only source of good quality reading that I've ever found reliable, and since it's been removed permanently, 2 things have happened for me.
1. I've stopped reading new books, because I can't find any that I actually finish the sample.
2. My author income has dropped dramatically, because no-one can find my books the way they used to.
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Change the Author following emails, which Amazon has been doing really badly for years now, to a push notification on the Amazon app on people's phones, and then push every new pre-order as it's added to the store, and every new release as it goes live.
In this way, every pre-order and new release for all the authors a reader follows will be placed in front of the reader. Whereas now, books can be discovered accidentally months after release, because no email notification was sent, or it was spam blocked along the way.
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Change AMS to not be a form of gambling.
The current system is less reliable than playing roulette is.
I for one, do not gamble. And I stopped using AMS back in 2019, when it was apparent you could throw $1000 into AMS and get $0 back.
It needs to be fixed so it actually works as an advertising medium, without being an unrealistic auction bid system.
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Stop putting advertising revenue ahead of sales, and actually put all the measures which used to make real sales back in the store.
AMS is basically a legal scam. It should be replaced by encouraging actual sales once again, and cross-promotion like used to happen.
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Return ranks reporting to 2 hourly as it used to be and reflect actual immediate sales.
Whatever war is going on with Bookbub, or the reason for messing with ranks now, MUST STOP.
Because all you're doing is messing with author incomes in a huge negative way, that AMS advertising cannot correct.
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Seriously, retcon all the changes made after 2016. In fact, go back to the store we had in 2015, which actually worked to sell books.
alhawke:
It's possible that Amazon is making all their changes this year because they're hurting from lackluster book sales just like we are. We'll never know. It is interesting that out of all retailers, the change rate for Amazon doing something new is like 10x more aggressive. Whereas Barnes and Noble will change something every year, Amazon does it every two weeks to every month. Is this good business? For us, no.
I've completely given up on AMS ads. I use BookBub ads aggressively. The question is, does Amazon care if experienced writers turn their back on their ad system? Perhaps they're still making enough money from newbie writers and simply the large $ money pot from the masses? I agree that if everyone turns their back on AMS, things could change. But, ironically, the problem will feed itself. If people leave AMS, the odds of getting better ads goes up. That'll bring writers back. So, as a company, what incentive would Amazon have to change anything (though they like changing things)?
The category changes were supposed to be fair to writers. However the trouble I see with the system is that the categories are still chosen by Amazon. In other words, the three categories you choose are not the ones they necessarily use anyway. So all they really did was stop Indie writers from requesting new ones. This is not a helpful change to an experienced writer. You've taken away a service for writers serious about the industry. Go after abusing categories and take them down. Why reset the entire system?
Regarding ranking, why delay two to three days? To stop authors from ranking with big sales? The authors that do this are serious writers putting a lot of money into the industry. What's the matter with that? Large sales have been going on in the industry for ages. I don't understand this. And I don't get an excuse for "being fair". If anything, preventing new books from rising isn't fair at all because it keeps the same old books at the same place stagnant and drops competition. Amazon is the only retailer I know of doing this. Why?
The carousels current locations are odd. Many times I'll see one about non-book products. Or the absolute top 100 best sellers on Amazon. Obviously these moves aren't helpful to Indie writers. Bring back the way it was before. Totally agree.
Basically, just like ^^, the focus over the past year at Amazon has not been in the best interest of writers. This is really not good for us when the company is so big in the publishing world.
Hopscotch:
I agree w/all of the the above BUT we won't get what we want until we find a way (as Bill points out) to show the Zon that its best interest lies in finding ways to make more $$ off indie writing by fixing present points of failure. We know what the Zon doesn't know needs to be done. And may not care to know. How we get 'em to listen to us is the question we need to resolve.
TimothyEllis:
--- Quote from: Hopscotch on October 03, 2023, 01:07:10 AM ---I agree w/all of the the above BUT we won't get what we want until we find a way (as Bill points out) to show the Zon that its best interest lies in finding ways to make more $$ off indie writing by fixing present points of failure. We know what the Zon doesn't know needs to be done. And may not care to know. How we get 'em to listen to us is the question we need to resolve.
--- End quote ---
Rumour had it we had a Zon spy back a few years ago. Hopefully they still have someone monitoring the public section here.
If they don't, then Zon, by all means send one.
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